Still his soul fed upon the sovereign hour That had been or that should be:
—Swinburne.
Michael in the meanwhile was running through the deserted streets like a man possessed. Cloakless and hatless he ran, bending his head to the gusts of wind which tore down the narrow byways in the neighbourhood of the Strand.
 
Fitful clouds chased one another over his head, obscuring the moon, and from time to time descending in sharp showers of icy rain.
 
But Michael loved the wind and cared naught for the wet. The rags he wore were soon soaked through, but he did not attempt to take shelter beneath the various yawning archways which he passed from time to time; on the contrary he liked the cold douches of these winter showers which seemed to cool his head, burning with inward fever.
 
Michael Kestyon, the gambler, the adventurer, the wastrel, had begun the fight against his own soul.
 
For the space of a few seconds, there in the over-heated tavern room in the midst of all those drunkards, those profligates—scums of humanity—dying honour had called out in its agony: "Wilt sell me for gold?" but Michael had laughed out loud and long, and smothered those warning cries with the recklessness of the soldier of fortune who stakes his all on the winning card.
 
[127] His claim, his rights! His and those of that patient old soul dying of want in a lonely cottage, the while she should be living in the lap of luxury and of ease.
 
She was dying of want, of actual hard, bitter starvation. Michael knew it and could do naught to help, and in the midst of the dissolute life of the town had vainly striven to forget that even at the cost of his life's blood, which he would have given gladly drop by drop, he could not purchase for her a soft bed on which she would finally go to her eternal sleep.
 
His claim! His rights! Her happiness! The happiness of the one being in the whole wide world who had clung to him, who loved him for what he was and did not despise him for what he had become: this he could purchase for one hundred and twenty thousand pounds.
 
Had not Sir John Ayloffe himself said that 'twas a fortune which would tempt a king.
 
The lawyers had told Michael that only money was wanted to bring his claim before the Lords' House of Parliament now, and once publicly debated, justice could not stand against it.
 
Michael had oft laughed at those two words, "Only money!"
 
Only money! and when he sought and got a sword thrust that nearly killed him, he was given twenty crowns as blood-money. He reckoned at this rate that his miserable body would have to be as full of holes as a sieve, before he obtained enough money wherewith to satisfy the first lawyer who would condescend once more to take up his case.
 
But now all that—lawyers' fees, fees for a first hearing, for a second and for a third, for pleadings, interrogatories and affidavits, for petitions to the King and for[128] briberies to obtain a private audience—all that would be within his reach.
 
The price? A woman's honour and his own self-respect.
 
Once—very long ago, these would have mattered to him a great deal; in those days he had believed in men's honour and in women's virtue.
 
But now? He had lost so much self-respect already—what mattered if a few more shreds of it went the way of all his other ideals.
 
He had once boldly said that he would give his life's blood drop by drop, endure every agony, undergo every torture to see his mother installed at Maries Castle, her rightful and proper place.
 
Well, that had been easy to say! These things were not asked of him, and he had gone through so much, suffered often so terribly from hunger, wounds and fatigue that the sacrifice of his life or the endurance of most bitter tortures would have been an easy sacrifice. He was hard and tough—what nerves he had had been jarred beyond all sensibility long ago.
 
But now something was asked of him. Fate had spoken in no uncertain accents. She had said: "Make a sacrifice of thine honour, and thy most cherished wish will be gratified!"
 
If those former bold words—offers of blood and life—were not the talk of a weak-kneed braggart, then, Michael Kestyon, thou shouldst not hesitate!
 
Dost prize those paltry remnants of self-respect so highly that thou wouldst see thy mother starve ere thou sell them?
 
Starve, remember, starve!—in the direct, absolute, unmitigated sense of the word. If thou canst not provide her with the necessities of life, she must starve sooner or later, in a month, in a year, in two mayhap, that would depend[129] how charitably inclined the neighbours happened to be. But starve she must, if thou, her son, dost naught for her.
 
And Fate had whispered: "Money, power, justice await thee, at the price of thy self-respect and the honour of a woman who is a stranger to thee."
 
The subtle temptation had entered into Michael's heart like an insinuating poison which killed every objection, every argument, every moral rebellion in his soul. And the temptation assailed him just at this time when his whole being ached with the constant buffetings of life, when he longed with all the maddening strength of defiant impotence to hit right and left at the world which had derided him, to begin again a new life of action, of combat, of lofty aspirations.
 
Try and pity him, for the temptation was over-great; pity him because Fate had struck him one blow after another, each more and more difficult to bear since his soul, his mind, his entire self had scarcely time to recover from one before the next came crashing down, leaving him with one hope the less, one more ideal shattered, one more misery to bear.
 
One hundred and twenty thousand pounds!—Michael kept repeating the half dozen wonderful words to himself over and over again as he walked.
 
Thus tottering, buffeted by the wind, drunk with the magic of the thought which the words evoked, he reached his lodgings at last.
 
He rapped loudly at a low door with his knuckles, but had to wait some time before it was opened. A gnome-like figure wrapped in a tattered dressing gown and wearing a cotton night-cap appeared in the doorway. It was difficult to distinguish if the figure was that of man or woman. In brown and wrinkled hands it held a guttering[130] tallow dip which threw a trembling light on the dank walls of the narrow passage and feebly illumined the approach to the rickety stairs beyond.
 
Michael paid no heed to the muttered grumblings of the creature, but walked straight past it along the passage, and then up the creaky stairs which led to the garret above. As he reached the several landings he nearly fell over various prostrate bundles made up of human rags from out of which issued sleepy oaths, as Michael's foot stumbled against them.
 
His own garret was not much better than those open landings across which he had tottered and fumbled in the dark. Here the roof sloped down to the tiny dormer window, innocent of curtains, and made up of some half dozen tiny panes, mostly cracked and covered with thick coatings of grime.
 
Along the low wall opposite the window a row of ragged bundles—human only in shape—and similar to those which encumbered the landings, told their tale of misery and of degradation. There were some half dozen of these bundles lying all of a row against the wall. They were Michael's room companions, the wr............